This article was written by Kristin Wong and published by the New York Times on April 29, 2020. You can read the original article here.

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With the endless stream of urgent news pushing the boundaries of our mental health, it seems laughable to suggest optimism right now. Maybe you’re worried about losing your job, losing your home or losing a loved one. Maybe you already have. Maybe you’re worried about your own health, and maybe you feel helpless or doomed. Whatever it is, optimism feels like a luxury that few of us can afford.

But at its core, optimism doesn’t require you to sweep those anxious, negative feelings under the rug. It’s not about smiling when you don’t feel like it. Optimism is simply being hopeful about the future, even when the present feels wholly negative. Cognitively, this is a challenge, because it requires you to acknowledge your positive and negative emotions at once and to allow them to exist simultaneously. As hard as it may be to make the case for optimism during a time of crisis, that’s when it happens to be the most useful.

“There is an extraordinary level of uncertainty right now, and that produces fear, despair, helplessness and anxiety, which are all understandable and appropriate under these circumstances,” said Stephanie Marston, a psychotherapist and a co-author, with her daughter Ama Marston, of the book “Type R: Transformative Resilience for Thriving in a Turbulent World.”

“Especially during a crisis,” Stephanie Marston said, “we just have to be even more attentive to our emotional state. When we do that, we’re able to more quickly move beyond our stress, discomfort or pain.” Optimism can soften the negative effects of stress, allowing us to cope with and recover from trauma more easily. With all of this in mind, there is a handful of research-backed evidence for embracing optimism as a tool for dealing with the stress and anxiety you’re most likely experiencing right now.

Practice self-compassion.

“One of the keys to becoming more resilient is to practice compassion both toward ourselves as well as toward others,” Ms. Marston said. “One of the keys to doing so is to interrupt recurring cycles of negative inner dialogue.”

When we find ourselves cycling through negative thoughts that don’t go anywhere, it’s important to take a step back to disrupt the cycle of anxiety, Ms. Marston said. “This can include stopping and focusing on our breath rather than on our thoughts, changing our physical environment to help create distance from our initial mental space, or having a conversation with someone we trust to get a fresh perspective.”

Dr. Sarah Kate McGowan, an assistant clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, suggested coming up with coping statements to help you get through dark moments. This might be something like, “I can take this one day at a time” or “This is frightening, and I can handle it.” You can even write these statements on index cards to refer to when you find yourself back in the negativity loop, she said.

The bottom line: It’s important to recognize that, under extreme conditions, we’re all doing the best we can, “and we need extra understanding, care and nurturing,” Ms. Marston said, adding: “What words do you need to hear to comfort or reassure yourself about the virus right now? Are they realistic? What actions do you need to take to protect yourself, or to provide for yourself?”

Find pleasure in the small things.

With narrow options on how to spend your time during quarantine, you might find that some otherwise mundane activities, like making tea or feeding the dog, have become oddly enjoyable. Lean into that: These seemingly dull, day-to-day activities can be a welcome distraction from the stream of bad news.

“Behaviorally, I’m suggesting that people limit their news intake each day and engage in pleasant activities,” Dr. McGowan said. This doesn’t mean shutting yourself off to information entirely, but consuming that information in a more intentional way. For example, instead of reading every update as it happens, you could set aside an hour in the morning and one in the evening to stay informed on the day’s news.

Even under normal circumstances, mundane moments are important. In a recent study, researchers highlighted the value of small, everyday activities, asking participants to document daily habits, like which songs they listened to or what kind of updates they shared on Facebook. Months later, when subjects revisited these documented moments, they were more curious and interested in those past activities than they thought they would be. We tend to enjoy the mundane in hindsight — why not appreciate it in the moment, too?

Look for meaning.

It’s easy to spiral into a pit of existential despair, and who could blame you? But if you can construct some kind of meaning during a crisis, it may go a long way toward coping with the stress.

“I’ve been thinking frequently of the quote from Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’: ‘Those who have a “why” to live can bear with almost any how,’” Dr. McGowan said. “We can choose to use this time to connect to ourselves and what’s important to us, our values, who we strive to be in the world.” In other words, it’s a good time to think about what matters to you most and then process current events through that lens.

In a classic study on trauma, subjects wrote about their traumatic experiences for 15 minutes a day. Those who were able to find meaning from their experiences reported less stress, more positive moods and fewer illnesses than subjects who simply wrote about their everyday experiences.

“The pandemic can create an opening for us to emerge from it with a heightened sense of purpose,” Ms. Marston said, adding, “as well as increased compassion for the struggles of others.” Again, this doesn’t mean being naïve or insufferably positive about current events. “But when we approach this challenge with confidence or hope, we’re likely to do better and be able to transform difficult experiences into important lessons,” she said.

Give back and build community.

Altruistic behavior can make you feel better, too.

“When you hear of people struggling with the virus, can you allow this to enhance your sense of being part of a global community?” Ms. Marston asked. “Can you imagine yourself in their situation and say, ‘This is how it feels to be a human being right now?’”

While there are limited opportunities to help others, because the biggest way to help right now is to stay home, try to find small ways to bolster your community, whether it’s picking up groceries for a neighbor or checking on a vulnerable friend or family member. It might make all of this a bit more digestible.

Don’t sweep your negative feelings under the rug.

Negative feelings serve a purpose, and you shouldn’t ignore them. Our negative emotions tell us something’s wrong, making us more likely to give the problem the attention required to solve it.

“Negative emotions, such as anxiety, fear and doubt, can act like an attention funnel that narrows our minds to important details,” Ms. Marston said. “This can be valuable when evaluating situations during the pandemic and sorting out fact from fiction with the overwhelming amount of information we’re receiving.”

Overly negative thoughts can be unhelpful, but so can overly optimistic thoughts.

“It isn’t about glossing over the negative emotions associated with stress, traumas and changes in our lives, but instead letting them sit side by side with other feelings,” Ms. Marston said.

A 2004 study on optimism and resilience by the psychologists Michele M. Tugade and Barbara L. Fredrickson suggested that resilience requires emotional complexity and that resilient people are able to experience both positive and negative emotions simultaneously.

“We can work on drawing on a broader range of emotions,” Ms. Marston said. “We might ask, ‘How can I use the energy created by this stress and anxiety to help me better cope with the challenges I am facing?’ or ‘What can I learn from this stress, and how does it help me change, grow or find new solutions?’”

It can be helpful to organize your negative thoughts. “We can categorize our negative thoughts into thoughts that are untrue — without much evidence to support them — or unhelpful,” Dr. McGowan said. “Perhaps there is truth to the thought, but repeating it in our minds is not productive.”

Optimism is about giving yourself permission to hope, even if you feel extremely anxious, unhappy or fearful. It’s not about ignoring your negative feelings about the crisis, but about finding a way to keep them from overwhelming you.

“Many of these anxieties are due to the high level of uncertainty we are all experiencing,” Dr. McGowan said. “Some of us are better at coping with that than others.” Cognitively, optimism requires a lot of us, but emotionally, the payoff can be worthwhile.

Dr. McGowan added, “Our goal during this time is to learn ways to tolerate uncertainty.”